Change of Direction

Sorry about the delay with the posts. I have been busy with family stuff but that is not the whole story. Cheltenham was a real eye opener about how hard racing can be. I managed to come away with a small loss and it prompted me to do some digging into my betting. Due to this, I have decided to stop betting on the horses until I can be a bit more confident and I stop using my scatter gun sort of approach! However, I will continue to bet on the football bets. As such, this is what I will be betting on today:

Dutch Eredivision, FC Utrecht, 2pt @ 1.29 (Tote)

Dutch Eredivision, Ajax, 3 pt @ 1.22 (Ladbrokes)

Spanish Primera, Real Madrid, 3 pt @ 1.34 (Canbet)

Greece Division 1, Aris, 2pt @ 1.65 (188Bet)

Greece Division 1, AEK, 2pt @ 1.45 (William Hill)

Greece Division 1, Irkalis, 1pt @ 2.39 (12Bet)

In addition, I have just downloaded The Geeks Toy and will be spending some free time learning to trade on Betfair as well. I will post my thoughts on this experiment so that you can see how I am faring.

Not a Very Good Start

I thought one of my selections would hold on, but it was not meant to be. I was on the edge of my seat, and I am disappointed that I didn't find a winner, but the winner just found that little bit more and deserved to win. Onto the next race, and I have dutched Summit Meeting, Reve De Sivola, Manyriverstoctross, Peddlers Cross, Quel Espirit and Finians Rainbow. A winner should just bring me short of being level for the day. x

Cheltenham Day 2 First Race

Well Day 2 starts in the next 15 mins or so, and I think it seems a little bit harder than yesterday! I am going to continue with my dutching policy and hope for the best, but I will be using smaller stakes. I think I may have gone a little overboard with the staking yesterday and used relatively large stakes on the dutches compared to the size of the bank. Ive placed a £18 dutch on Becauseicouldntsee, Fabalu, Far More Serious (all tipped in the Racing Post) and another 4 horses. It won't be a big payout, but I am looking at a profit of £10.89 if one of the selections comes first. Good Luck to everyone. xx

Update after Cheltenham

Well, the first day has ended. I'm a bit disappointed even if I did make a profit for the day after Cheltenham. I just felt that I should have listened to myself and my "women's intuition" and maybe had more of a look at the form before putting my money on. Incidentally, it was Binocular that I was really unsure about, and I left it out, and I paid for that mistake. Oh well! We live and learn! I made a total of £44.85 profit, and my betting bank now stands at £507.50. I am just scraping a profit of £7.50 over my starting bank. I am still somewhat down on the peak of my betting bank which at one point last month stood at £652.64.

I do have two outstanding bets tonight which include:

Stvenage Win v Histon £8 @ 1.30
Peer Win v Jankovic £16 @ 1.73

Also, I really think my football bets need a bit more work. I posted some tips the other day, and only one paid out, the other two were losing bets. I'm trying to work on a high strike rate, low odds bets, that I can place a little bit more on to offset the horse racing tips as the strike rates on these are low but at better odds. I think my staking plan and the way I bet is sort of working. I have so far placed 355 bets, with 115 winners. From my little starting pot of £500 I have turned over bets worth £2229.30 (4 x my betting bank). However, it is disappointing that I have so far only made a profit of £7.50 which is a very measly 0.33% Return on Investment. The only solace is that if I was over staking or had poor bank management, then I am sure I would have been found out by now. Any thoughts or advice from readers would be appreciated. x

So Far So Good

Well that race worked out for me. I really do have a big smile on my face right now! So far so good! That was a lovely race. I couldn't believe I even had the 1-2-3 horses in the race as well! Shame I didn't back it huh! All that reading up and hours spent on various sites has so far paid off! I am a bit uncertain about this next race, as there are one or two that I should include, but I can't justify as the payout will be too low. In the Champion Hurdle, I have dutched Go Native, Punjabi, Khyber Kim, Celestial halo, Starluck and Zaynar. If I lose on this race, most of the profit will be wiped out. I realise it is a bit risky but after a long thinking session last night and this morning, this was my strategy. So far, I have been vindicated, but for some reason I have butterflies in my stomach before this race, and that is normally not a good sign! I really hope I get a payout on this race as well. Good Luck to all, especially me :) xx

14:40 William Hill Trophy

Please Please can I have another winner! This looks a very very hard race and I have covered 25% of the field with £50. If any of the selections wins I will profit by £44. The selections I have covered in my dutch include: Bensalem, Ogee, The Package, Knowhere, Chief Dan George and Character Building. I should know my fate within the next 15 mins or so.

Supreme Novices Good Start :)

I had 6 runners against the field in this race. This included Menorah, Oscar Whiskey, General Miller, get Me Out of Here and Blackstair Mountain. I backed all of these with Paddy Power as they had a money back offer if Dunguib won. I placed a £50 dutch which has paid out a profit of £60.57. I backed Dunguib with Betfred for £50 as well as they refund your losing stake and you can bet on something else. All In all It was a profitable start :)

I was going to back a few in the second race as well - but the shortlist was too big and I just didn't feel confident with cutting the field further and the profit was not worth the risk - so I have left this race alone.

I may be back in a short while after I have placed bets on the next race. Good Luck! xx

Football Bets

Hi Everyone. I don't have much time today but did want to make a quick post. The betting has not been great and I need to update my spreadsheet by tonight to see where I am at. I'm sure with the start of Cheltenham tomorrow it will be very busy. I have been looking at my football bets as well, which have been very disappointing and have been under performing. However, I did have a bit of an eureka moment and I think I have a bit of an "angle" to work with in the future. So I am going out of my comfort zone and putting these up. I'm not sure if anyone is interested in them or not, but what the hell!

Metz Win v Nantes: 1Pt Win @ 1.90
Liverpool Win v Portsmouth: 1Pt Win @ 1.29
Grosetto Win v Mantova: 1Pt Win @ 2.07

Losses Continue

I think the title says it all! Since my last post, I have managed to lose an extra £59.10. The betting bank now stands at £466.62. This is not the end of the world, and I hope it doesn't end up going into free fall. Today was abysmal. I had 6 bets. 3 were each way bets and not one placed, and the other three were win bets - none won! I am disappointed and I feel a lot of the hard work and more importantly, the profit has gone down the drain over the past few days or so. From the peak of the bank at £652 to it's current standing I have lost a total of £186.02. This is not good reading and it is seriously testing my patience and confidence - which is shot at the moment. It will take some time to make this loss up as my stakes are normally quite small, they range between £1 - £8 most of the time. It will take a very good run of sorts to inject some life into my betting bank. Reading some of the blogs, it seems most people are having some sort of bad time, but it really does not make me feel better at all. Now I have got that off my chest, I'm off to have a cuppa and choccy biccies :)

Betting Bank Ups and Downs

It has not been a good few days. I have found it very hard to make a profit and in all honesty, I placed a few extra bets that I really shouldn't have. I did not go as far as doubling up my stakes, but I did place a few bets on some outsiders and then hoping that at least one of them would come in, but suffice to say they performed even worse than the odds suggested!

I have tried to show the ups and downs on the spreadsheet chart, but I don't think I did very well, the picture is a bit small. I'm sure you get the idea though!

I am starting to feel quite excited about the Cheltenham Festival. I have never seen it so I feel like a virgin at the moment - all excited and very nervous!! I am sure it will be as good as the positive vibes I am getting from people all over the place. I just hope I don't bankrupt my betting bank in the process!

I need to work out if I will be able to watch it on TV or not. During the daytime, the TV is taken over by my 4 year old. It is either a choice of CBeebies or Playhouse Disney - I don't think he even knows there are other TV channels. However, I'll have to try and work something out before it kicks off. He is a stubborn little thing, and yesterday after I told him he couldn't play with his Nintendo DS, he stormed upto me, looked me up and down and said: "YOU ARE SO DEAD TO ME!" I was stunned, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry - so I did both!

Anyway that's enough for now. It's my last day off from work, and I'm back to the grind early tomorrow morning.

Shocking Saturday

It was a hard day today. I've just finished updating the results spreadsheet for today and those from the beginning of March, and it was depressing. Going on to today, I spent ages this morning trawling through the Racing Post, various websites and putting bets on. I had 28 bets today with the majority of them on horse racing. My stakes came to a total of £161.00, and I returned a loss of -£33.19. This could have been worse as there were only 6 winners, most at short prices that included 1.80, 1.90 and 1.80.

The main highlights included a dutch in the 15.25 Doncaster race that included Wogan, Cloudy Lane, Iris De Balme and Mill Side. After reading the Racing Post and Pricewise tipping Iris De Balme, and positive mentions for the other three after a bit of research on various tips paid dividends with a profit of £21.00 after Wogan won. In addition, the biggest win of the day came from backing the winner of 15:45 Newbury at an early price of 9/1 returned a profit of £43.20. There were some very disappointing football results, especially in League Two, as I expected at least 2 of the home sides to win, but I was wrong!

Since the beginning of this month, I have placed 69 bets with 17 winners. I have staked £364.40 and have returned a loss of -£44.44. I can't afford too many off days or large losses, but I think at the moment my betting bank is coping, and to be honest there have not been any wild swings. I am heartened by this, as my main concern is to protect the bank and to maximise my return of investment by turning the bank over as much as I can. My betting bank is too small in terms of money to be very selective, and I feel that if I take this approach I may still be building a bank next year!

February Results

Sorry about the lack of posts. The past few days my internet connection has been woeful. It has been very very frustrating. My poor husband has been on the end of some well chosen expletives! It's not his fault but so what! He deserves it, after ridiculing my betting activities and blog since I started. Apparently women can't and shouldn't bet, and I should ask him for advice before betting on football as that's a "man's sport." This did not go down well at all! I told him to mind his own business and I am on a mission to prove him wrong.

Moving on, I thought February went very well for me. If I make a profit at the end of the month, I will be happy. My bank of £500 increased to £618.94. A Profit of £118.94 and a ROI of 12.91%.

In total I had 163 bets, 61 winners - a strike rate of 37.42%. I turned over £921.20 worth of bets in the process. Put that in your pipe and smoke it! (she says to her hubby!!)

I did want to put a little chart showing the ups and down over the month from my Excel sheet, but I tried copy/past but nothing happened. If anyone does know how to do it, I'd really like your help.

March has not been very good so far and once I have updated my spreadsheet, I should get a much better idea. That's it for now. x

Feeling Lucky

Another day, and another profit. I'm feeling quite optimistic at this very early stage, and I feel that I am somewhat riding on a crest of a wave. However, I am not under any illusion that I will be in for a crash landing soon, and I just hope the way I have set up my betting bank will be able to cope. After reading all the other blogs and internet forums, it is likely that there will be some sort of correction sooner rather than later. However, for now I will enjoy the feeling of being in profit.

These are the bets I had today, with the profit and loss figures:

Liverpool: £8 @ 1.80 +£6.40

Josear: £4 @ 21.00 -£4

Pendragon: £2 @ 12.00 +£22

Esteem Machine £4 @ 6.00 -£4

Queen Poline £6 @ 5.00 +£14.40

King Olav: £2 @ 5.50 +£9

Ryde Back: £6 @ 3.50 -£6

Bobby Gee £3 @ 9.50 -£3

Gunslinger £4 @ 15.00 +£3.60

Total Profit for the day was +£38.40. My betting bank is currently standing at £647.24. I started off with £500 on 09/02/10. So far this month, I have placed stakes to the total of £716.80 over 133 bets. There have been 50 winners (this includes horses that were placed as well) and I have made a profit of £147.24. This is a ROI of 20.54% (I think). I am very happy with this figure. At the start I was aiming for 10% but I'll settle for this :)

Much Better Day

I have been using the Oddsportal website to find the best odds on my football bets. However, I was looking at the Value Bets section of the website and was quite intrigued. I have read many blogs, websites and articles and they always seem to go on about value betting, value prices and how in the long run this is the only way to make betting pay. Now this is what Odds Portal have on their website regarding their Value Bets section:

Value bets listed above provide tips on matches that you can bet on with mathematical advantage. Our value bets are calculated from bookmaker's market difference in comparison to its competing companies. Betting with value included in the bets should lead to long-term profits. The "Odds" column indicates biggest betting odds available, while "Value" calculates mathematical profit you can take advantage of. The "Prob." column explains the likelihood of winning the bet.

I had a look at two highlighted advices, which were these two:

Draw No Bet Outcome Bookmaker Odds Value Prob.

24 Feb Tottenham - Bolton 2 Victor Chandler 9.00 1.34 12.92%

1X2 Outcome Bookmaker Odds Value Prob.

24 Feb USA - Switzerland 2 Bet Chronicle 15.50 1.34 7.64%

After thinking about the value betting scenario, and also that it seems like the hard work is already done by the site and the other bookmakers, I thought I will give it a go, and see what happens. If i'm honest I don't really understand the value figure, but i'm guessing if I keep backing at odds that are better than what they should be, then I should make a profit in the long tern. I will only be staking £1 on these bets. I will see after a month or so, if there is any mileage in it or not. If anyone has any views or does something similar, then I would love to hear from you.

These are the bets that I had today, and have been settled so far:

Trabolgan: £8 @ 3.50 -£8

Marodima: £4 @ 8.50 +£30

No Wonga: £6 @ 3.75 -£6

Chief Dan George: £3 @ 8.00 +£21

Five Out Of Five: £3 @ 15.00 -£3

Chief Dan George £6 @ 8.50 +£27

Le Seychellois £3 @ 16.00 -£3

Braunschweig v Burghausen Draw £4 @ 4.15 -£4

Total for the Day: +£54

Football Let Down

Today could have been a very good day, but the end of the day shows a slight loss! I had a small win bet on Quousko De L'isop at Southwell. It ran a very good race with virtually making all, almost unchallenged and making me a profit on the day's racing with my only horse racing bet. However, fast forward a few hours to the evening football, and it all turned sour! I had 5 football bets, all the selections were at home, and only one of them managed to win. Anyway, here is what I bet on today:

Quousko De L'isop: £4 @ 7.00 +£24.00

Charlton Win v Brighton: £8 @ 1.74 -£8.00

Norwich Win v Southend: £8 @ 1.42 +£3.36

Walsall Win v Yeovil: £8 @ 2.22 -£8.00

Aldershot Win v Dagenham £8 @ 2.38 -£8.00

Rochdale Win v Bradford £8 @ 1.60 -£8.00

Total for the day: -£4.64

Introduction to My Betting Blog

Over the past year or so, I have started reading up on betting, especially on horses and football. I have never really gambled on this, apart from my £2 a week lottery ticket. I still haven't won a tenner on that yet! I've been visiting online forums, blogs and reading a variety of newsletters, and the Racing Post online, and finally decided to take the plunge earlier this month.

I saved up a relatively small amount of £500 and have decided that this will be my betting bank. In addition, I will be using a variety of sources to get my betting advice from. This will include both free and paid sources. The free sources include Racing Post, At The Races, Timeform, Sportinglife and Betting Zone.

My main concern is the betting bank and staking. I've been thinking of this, and whilst I don't expect to make thousands, I want to use the bank fully. I want to turn over at least £500 every month and if I can get about a 10% return on this, then I will be very happy. This means that I will be placing a lot of bets, but I will make sure that no bet is over a maximum 5% of the betting bank.

Since the beginning of February, I have staked £594.80 with a return of £656.28. Therefore making a profit of £61.48 so far for the month. From now on, I will also include my bets, odds taken and profit and loss figures over the course of the week

I really want to give this blogging thing a good go. I have read blogs where it seems like it helps. I am not trying to blow my own trumpet as people on other blog gamble enormous money like £100-£300 per bet! I am only trying to show my story - what happens or where I will end up, I don't know! I really hope some of you will join me, offer any advice and maybe meet some like minded people along the way.